The present invention relates to a vehicle surrounding information informing device that informs a vehicle passenger of a surrounding obstacle information, and in particular, relates to a vehicle surrounding information informing device that calculates an existing area where a hidden-area obstacle that approaches the own vehicle is likely to exist, based on own-vehicle traveling information and another-vehicle obstacle information, and then inform the existing area.
Conventionally, a driving assist technology, in which any obstacle, such as another vehicle (vehicles) or a pedestrian, that exists around an own vehicle are detected by a camera or a radar of the own vehicle, and, for instance, the possibility of collision of the own vehicle against the obstacle is detected and then informed by means of an indication or a voice message, is known. However, it may be difficult to properly detect any obstacle that is located within a dead ground of the own vehicle due to existence of buildings or the like only by the camera or radar.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-101566 discloses a traffic safety confirming system. In this system, a road image and a road-side image around an intersection are picked up individually by an intersection-camera that is provided at the intersection and a vehicle-camera that is provided at the own vehicle or another vehicle than the own vehicle. Then, data of these images are transmitted to a system body. At the system body, the data of the road image that may be located within the dead ground of the own vehicle proceeding into the intersection and the data of the road-side image that may not be located within the dead ground of the own vehicle are combined in such a manner that both images overlap each other. This overlapping image data may be transmitted to the own vehicle from the system body, and then indicated on a side window of the own vehicle.
Generally, there may occur traffic accidents (sudden-meeting collision) at or around blind (unclear) intersections more often than at or around clear intersections. Also, more accidents may happen in an urban area where many buildings gather due to existence of more roads with blind intersections and more traveling vehicles. Accordingly, it may be rather difficult to properly detect the obstacle located within the dead ground of the own vehicle only by the camera or radar, so even informing the existence of this hidden-area obstacle could not be conducted properly.
Meanwhile, since the traffic safety confirming system disclosed in the above-described patent document may indicate the overlapping image data of the road image and the road-side image as described above, any hidden-area obstacles contained in the overlapping image data may be indicated. Thereby, the passenger could recognize the hidden-area obstacles that exist around the intersection.
The above-described traffic safety confirming system, however, could not detect and indicate (inform) an accurate location of the hidden-area obstacle because the own vehicle and the hidden-area obstacle actually move momently. Namely, there is a problem in that an error (difference) between the actual location and the indicated location of the hidden-area obstacle would become improperly large, so that the passenger (driver) could not surely recognize the existence of the hidden-area obstacle in order to take any proper action to avoid a possible collision with the hidden-area obstacle. Accordingly, the reliability of the traffic safety confirming system would be improperly low.